Work

Beauty, weight, and skin color in charitable giving

Year: 2015

Type: article

Abstract: This paper examines bias in online charitable microfinance lending. We find that charitable lenders on a large peer-to-peer online microfinance website appear to favor more attractive, lighter-skinned, and less obese borrowers. Borrowers who appear more needy, honest and creditworthy also receive funding more quickly. These effects are quantitatively significant: Borrowers with beauty one standard deviation above average are treated as though they are requesting approximately 11% less money. Statistical discrimination does not appear to explain our findings, as these borrower attributes are uncorrelated with loan performance or borrower enterprise performance. The evidence suggests implicit bias could explain our findings: more experienced lenders, who may rely less on implicit attitudes, appear to exhibit less bias than inexperienced lenders.

Source: Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2015.06.004

Authors: Christina Jenq, Jessica Pan, Walter Theseira

Institutions: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, National University of Singapore, Singapore University of Social Sciences

Language: English

Topic: FinTech, Crowdfunding, Digital Finance

Subfield: Management Information Systems

Field: Business, Management and Accounting

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,180